Chartwell's 50 gallon CAD cube

chartwell

chartwell

New member
Okay, I'm going to do a thread to keep track of everything I do to set up my new CAD 50 gallon Artisan series tank and to ask questions as they occur to me, which will be often, I'm sure. My current tank has been running for over a year and is a 30 gallon cube with no sump, no skimmer, 4 T5's for light and a HOB Aquaclear filter running with a foam pad, Purigen and Polyfilter. One Koralia 2 for flow. I have a ball of cheato hidden behind the rocks, can't wait to be able to move that into a proper refugium. I have to say this set up has been relatively trouble-free. I've had no issues with nuisance algae or anything and all of my corals are thriving.

I currently have three fish:
Black O. Clown
Midas Blenny
Royal Gramma

Corals:

Open Brain
Frogspawn
Candycanes
Zoas
Big green mushroom
Purple mushrooms (hitchhikers on live rock)
Coco worm
Blasto


I also have one Turbo snail, one hermit crab and hundreds of those tiny white snails that come out at night. I plan on adding some more snails to the 50 gallon, need to decide which type.

Really awful FTS of current tank:
30gallon.jpg
 
cad1.jpg


cad2.jpg


overflow.jpg



So here is the new tank! It is a 50 gallon cube 24” X 24” X 20” tall, starphire glass on three sides, internal overflow centered in the back. I am using the equipment that comes with it as a package deal. The light is a 150 watt MH plus two 24 W T5HO actinic and LED moonlights. The sump is acrylic and has a section to use as a refugium and comes with a PC light for that purpose. The skimmer is a Bubble Magnus Mini-Pro. Also came with the return pump and a cooling fan.

The tank is supposed to come with all of the plumbing parts needed, but some of ours didn’t make it into the box. We are currently waiting on the loc-line and a few other parts to be able to actually put water in the tank. We also want to use Spa-flex and you can only buy it in 50ft rolls locally, so we ordered that online and are waiting for it to come.

The tank is sitting on the stand my husband is building - when it is done it will be skinned in cherry panels. There will be a door in the front and then the two side panels will attach with magnets for easy access to inside the stand

stand2.jpg
 
Lighting

Lighting

I bought two of the DJ switches with four outlets each and plan to plug everything I can into those so I can turn off things like the pump or heater quickly and easily if needed. The lights I will run through timers and I've been thinking about how to run my photo periods. The fixture came with a 13,000K bulb, but I swapped it out for an Ushio 10,000K and I think that looks really good - less blue. Plus I understand it should give me better coral growth. I'm thinking to maybe do the actinics for 10 hours a day and the MH for 8. Then the moonlights would be on the rest of the time. The light in the refugium will be on the same hours as the moonlights. I don't have or want any hard to care for SPS corals. Once the tank is mature I might want a clam, and maybe one or two of the less demanding SPS corals.

Should I start off gradually with the MH since my corals are not used to it, or will it be okay since it is only 150 watts? The light is mounted on legs about 4-5 inches off the surface of the water. I was thinking maybe do just a few hours a day right at first and work my way up to eight?
 
Flow

Flow

Due to the nature of what I have and want in the coral department I don't think I need a tank with crazy high flow. I need to decide in the next few days what to do for a powerhead for the tank. My Koralia 2 in my 30 gallon puts out plenty of flow. I actually bought a Koralia 3 but it made my frogspawn and zoas whip around so much I took it out and use it in my water change mixing container. I could use that Koralia 3 in this tank, or move up to a Vortech.

If I get a Vortech I'm really thinking about just getting a MP10 because they are smaller and cost less than a MP20, yet still put out nearly twice as much flow as the Koralia 3. But I am worried about the fact I can't direct a Vortech "“ it will just blow straight out from the back wall. I'm undecided as to whether or not this will be okay. I've also considered a Tunze Turbelle, but that costs half of a Vortech and seems to be about like a Koralia in design (yes, I know they are supposed to be higher quality, but I really have had no issues with the Koralias,) so I figured if I was going to upgrade it would be all or nothing.
 
Sand, rock, etc.

Sand, rock, etc.

My plan on the changeover is to get the new tank plumbed and running and then put in the sand and rock I bought for it. I have 25 lbs of BRS Reef Saver rock that has been in a Rubbermaid full of old tank water, live sand and quite a few small chunks of live rock I harvested out of the current tank. It has a powerhead and heater and I’ve been putting small amounts of food in there and using the water from my current tank to do a water change on it when I do a water change on that tank. It’s been about 3 weeks so far - hopefully bacteria is colonizing that nice porous rock. I also have 40lbs of Seaflor Special Grade Aragonite sand – I plan on a shallow sand bed. That’s what I have in my current tank and I stir it up and lightly vacuum it each time I do a water change and it has stayed looking great for a year.

Anyway, I plan on letting the new rock and sand settle in along with my two favorite pieces of live rock from my current tank. I’ll have live rock rubble and cheato in the fuge. I can’t decide on if I can safely move my corals into the new tank at that point, or if I should wait. It would be easier to do it all at once as they are well attached to my live rock that I want to keep.

I thought I’d let it all run for a few weeks before putting in any of my fish, or does everyone think that is necessary when using old tank water and liverock? I assume I won’t have much of a cycle, but want to play it safe. I guess I could put my unkillable clown in there after a few weeks and then the midas and the gramma a bit later.
 
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Not too much happening, still waiting on the plumbing parts to arrive. (Insert Tom Petty song here: The waiiiii-ting is the hardest part)

I did leak test the sump - all good there.

Husband has almost all the panels done for the stand, now onto sanding and finishing.

Biggest news is I went ahead and ordered a Vortech MP10. Plan is to see how it does (remember, I don't have SPS corals) and if it is not enough flow I will (gulp) order a second MP10 and have one on either side of the overflow.

That's about it for now.
 
Okay, we gave up on ever getting the plumbing parts that were supposed to come with the tank and just went and bought Loc-line, etc., locally. So now that I'm setting stuff up I have a question about the return pump. It has no screen of any sort before the intake. Is this normal? I can see slots and threads on the front that look like some sort of screen/filter could be attached to prevent the pump from sucking in something it shouldn't. In theory nothing should be able to get to it through all the baffles in the sump but what if a chunk of cheato got into the return section or something?
 
Got tired of waiting on Eddie huh? Anyways, thanks for documenting the setup of your new Cad tank. They are very nice looking. Im looking forward to more updates and pics.

The return pump should be ok without a screen but, you're right, if some cheato gets in it, it might jam it up. On that note, you will need to shut off the power to the system to double check that the sump is large enough to handle the backflow of water in the event of a power outage. If you have'nt done that, now is a good time to do it.

Maybe you could post a pic of the included return pump so we can see the intake on it and advise better. Good luck and thanks for posting.

DEnnis
 
Jonny Roks: Thanks!

NaH20freak: Yes, Eddie is nice as could be, but CAD's order fulfillment leaves something to be desired. My plumbing is a mess because we did not get sent any of the part for the overflow (Lock-line, bulkheads, adapaters) so we've been trying to buy stuff locally and make it work, but the only fish store in town is out of what we need, so it is getting really frustrating! We're at the point now where I think we can get the water returning to the tank but it will just come out of bulkheads up on the overflow until we get the adapters to run the Lock-line into. But at least I could start making water!

Looking at this picture we are still missing #2, which connects the Lock-line to the bulkhead.

bulkheadfittingandcustom700G019-2.jpg



Back to the return pump - this is what it looks like:

returnpump.jpg


returnpump2.jpg
 
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